After having a child, a special psychological change will occur.

That comes from the sense of responsibility as a father.

While Zhu Ying was accompanying Ye Yueqing in her confinement, Zhu Yuanzhang began to spread the rumor that he was going to choose a concubine for the crown prince.

This makes many people have their own thoughts.

Especially those who have girls of marriageable age, they are looking forward to it very much.

There are generally four criteria for selecting a concubine.

The first thing is background. In addition to being beautiful, a woman must also have a certain background. If a woman’s background is relatively strong, then the starting point of this woman is relatively high, and the chance of being favored will be greater.

Because such women can also bring certain benefits. On the contrary, some women who are very beautiful but have no status may just be unknown little people, serving the emperor or concubines all day long.

During the Hongwu period, people still paid great attention to the matching of family backgrounds. Later, after Zhu Di, the emperors of the Ming Dynasty selected concubines from the common people in order to prevent external relatives from interfering in power.

For example, Crown Prince Zhu Biao’s wife, Chang, was the daughter of Chang Yuchun.

It can be said to be a powerful combination.

The second thing is that she must be beautiful. A beautiful woman always makes people feel pleasing to the eye, and as a concubine, taking her out is also a symbol of face. After all, in ancient times, a beautiful woman did not easily marry anyone.

In addition, beautiful women generally have more power and are more likely to be favored.

Then comes the need for a good figure. Beauty will attract people's attention and make one a candidate for a concubine. However, in addition to being beautiful, one must also have a very good figure. If one only has a beautiful face but not a good figure, he or she will be eliminated as a candidate for a concubine.

After all, nowadays, women are not allowed to leave the house, various exercise equipment is not very complete, and no one exercises. If you are fat, it will affect your future status.

The last one is to be proficient in music, chess, calligraphy and painting. People believe that a woman's virtue lies in her lack of talent, but women living in wealthy families still have to learn some talents.

This is also a plus point in selecting a concubine in the palace. If you are beautiful, have a good figure, and have a prominent family background, and can please the emperor, then the probability of being selected as a concubine is very high, and the chance of becoming a concubine and being favored is also very high.

This news soon reached Xu Miaojin.

Xu Miaojin looked at the elder sister in front of her with a strange expression, wanted to say something, but then swallowed it back.

Xu Yihua naturally understood what her younger sister was thinking, and asked, "When the Crown Prince chooses his concubine, you also want to participate, right?"

"I also know some of your affairs, but His Royal Highness the Crown Prince does not necessarily have this intention. It's just that as far as choosing a concubine is concerned, I don't think you have any rivals in this regard."

Xu Miaojing undoubtedly meets the current standards for the Crown Prince's consort, but on this point, it all depends on the wishes of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince himself.

Even though Xu Miaojin is not very old now, she already has the look of a beauty.

In a few years, when she grows up completely, she will be stunningly beautiful.

Listening to her elder sister's words, Xu Miaojin made up her mind and said, "I'm going to choose a concubine."

Xu Yihua thought for a moment and said, "You are the daughter of my Xu family. You can see that when His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is selecting a concubine, there will definitely be no woman who can have your status."

"As the daughter of my Xu family, it would be too simple for me to follow the imperial concubine selection process step by step. I will talk to my second brother and ask him to go to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince or His Majesty to get the ball rolling."

"I think it shouldn't be a big problem."

The second brother Xu Yihua was referring to is the current Duke of Wei, Xu Huizu.

Xu Huizu was born in the first year of Hongwu, and is now exactly 26 years old.

As the eldest son of Xu Da, Xu Huizu also inherited excellent military talents and was highly trusted by Zhu Yuanzhang.

His original name was Xu Yungong. He was eight feet five inches tall, handsome, elegant and talented. He worked in the Left Army Commander's Office of the Ministry of Honors and Guards.

He inherited the title after Xu Da's death.

In order to avoid the name of the crown prince Zhu Yunwen, he was given the name Xu Huizu.

He trained troops several times in Shaanxi, Beiping, Shandong, and Henan. Aru Temur of the Prince of Yan's Mansion had other plans, so he was captured and killed.

After returning, he was in charge of the Central Military Governor's Office.

After hearing his elder sister say that his younger sister Xu Miaojing wanted to become the Crown Prince's concubine, Xu Huizu chose to support her after a little hesitation.

"I will go talk to His Majesty then."

Xu Huizu thought about it and made up his mind.

Xu Huizu had long known that his younger sister Xu Miaojing liked His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. The Xu family was now one of the top noble families in the Ming Dynasty and did not need to maintain its status by marrying into His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

Both Xu Huizu and Xu Yihua are quite supportive of my younger sister's personal ideas.

Xu Huizu was also quite decisive. He went straight to the palace and found Zhu Yuanzhang.

"I didn't expect that you would propose to my younger sister. There is no problem with this. When the time comes, I will tell my eldest grandson about it. I won't have to follow the rules of selecting a concubine. I will find an auspicious day and directly appoint her as the Crown Prince's concubine."

Zhu Yuanzhang was also straightforward. As for Xu Miaojin's identity, there was indeed no other woman of marriageable age in the Ming Dynasty who could compare to her.

In addition to Xu Da's relationship, Zhu Yuanzhang still trusted Xu Da's descendants, and without Xu Da's presence, there was no need to worry about any interference with the imperial power.

Xu Huizu of the new generation was considered the backbone of the Ming Dynasty in the future.

After obtaining Zhu Yuanzhang's approval, Xu Huizu told Xu Miaojin the good news directly.

Xu Miaojin blushed immediately and was full of anticipation.

Zhu Ying didn't have any feelings about the concubine.

Although she is the eldest daughter now, Zhu Ying will definitely give priority to Ye Yueqing in the future.

If Ye Yueqing gave birth to a boy and confirmed the legitimate son, then the other children would not be so particular.

In addition to accompanying Ye Yueqing during her confinement, Zhu Ying was also trying to study the future economic direction of the entire Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang hated corruption and made great efforts to eradicate it to maintain clean politics in the Ming Dynasty. He carried out large-scale farmland water conservancy construction and promoted the planting of mulberry, hemp and cotton to provide raw materials for handicrafts. He saved a considerable amount of money and grain.

Even though the Ministry of Revenue was in deficit every year, there was still a certain amount of rice left in many rice warehouses. In addition, the military households in the garrisons were self-sufficient, and the salaries of officials were reduced. In fact, the foundation of the Ming Dynasty was still very strong.

Historically, after Zhu Di became emperor, all the money he spent was basically all from the foundation left by Zhu Yuanzhang.

He built a new capital, dredged the Grand Canal, ordered Zhang Fu to pacify Annan, and personally led five expeditions to northern Mongolia.

Hu Ying's "search for immortals", Xie Jin's compilation of the Yongle Encyclopedia, and Zheng He's voyages to the West, Zhu Di's spending had no end.

Although the economy prospered and the country became the most powerful in the world during Zhu Di's reign, after twenty-two years of reckless spending, the price of a stone of rice had risen from one string of coins in the early years of Hongwu to fifty strings of coins.

High-yield crops can indeed solve many of the current problems in the Ming Dynasty. Strictly speaking, the registered population of the Ming Dynasty is now over 60 million, which also makes the food pressure not that great.

However, in the years to come, due to high-yield crops and improved economic levels, the Ming Dynasty will inevitably usher in a period of population explosion.

The food supply in the world is limited. With a larger population, we can only continue to open up new land.

Therefore, this balance in agriculture and business is very important to Zhu Ying.

"It seems that we still have to go the import route."

After Zhu Ying pondered for a moment, he thought to himself.

The so-called import means importing large quantities of grain from other countries to fill the gap in the ever-increasing prices of the Ming Dynasty.

To put it simply, it is to arrange powerful businessmen in the Ming Dynasty to become farmers overseas and then transport grain to the Ming Dynasty.

On this point, Zhu Ying is encouraging.

Naturally, transporting rice is not expensive, especially when the price of grain needs to be kept down.

However, Zhu Ying used the recruitment of guards and the right to open overseas trade to exchange a certain amount of money for the maritime merchants.

In other words, Zhu Ying will arrange a certain amount of force to maintain the safety of overseas merchants. Some small places can also arrange for soldiers from the Ming Dynasty to be hired as maritime merchant guards.

To put it simply, it is to encourage private capital to explore territories outside the Ming Dynasty.

Among them, the Qun Ying Chamber of Commerce is naturally the big boss.

Zhu Ying then instructed Zhang Bo to handle it.

After receiving the news, Zhang Bo set off for Jiangnan without any hesitation.

In terms of the current maritime trade, Zhu Ying is vigorously supporting the Jiangnan area. Coastal areas such as Fujian and Guangzhou are already very proficient in maritime trade. Even if there were no maritime ban, there would still be many people engaged in smuggling. Now it is just being regulated.

But Jiangnan is different.

Because of some historical issues in the south of the Yangtze River, Zhu Yuanzhang increased the taxation greatly. The entire area of ​​Jiangnan was subject to extremely heavy taxes.

This situation, first of all, caused great disruption to the economy of the Jiangnan region, and secondly, led to people's complaints against the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Ying naturally knew the problems that Zhu Yuanzhang was worried about. The root of the problem still lay with the aristocratic families. These families were not greatly affected by the war and did not have a strong sense of belonging to the Ming Dynasty.

In their view, only their own family was the key, and the factional relations were particularly strong, which Zhu Yuanzhang had always been wary of.

Including Liu Bowen, he was also influenced to some extent by his origin in the south of the Yangtze River.

He kept losing points with Zhu Yuanzhang.

If there is no other method, Zhu Yuanzhang's current method is actually very suitable for the current Ming Dynasty.

But now Zhu Ying has more ways to deal with this issue.

He wanted the big families in Jiangnan to go out and not waste too much energy on infighting. If they wanted to fight, they should fight outside.

When the wealthy families in the south of the Yangtze River tasted the sweetness of maritime trade, they naturally focused their energy on expanding overseas.

To a certain extent, it is equivalent to diverting the social contradictions in the Ming Dynasty.

The situation in Jiangnan is actually the same in coastal cities such as Fujian and Guangzhou. The reason why their situations are not as serious as Jiangnan is that their minds have gone overseas.

Zhu Ying simply tried to use this method to govern Jiangnan.

Maybe it means that distance creates beauty.

Only when people are in a foreign country will they say they miss their hometown more.

Similarly, when people are abroad, they will miss their country more.

Often, businessmen who have experienced life overseas tend to love the Ming Dynasty to a greater extent.

Those who have experienced war-torn areas yearn for peace more and more.

Seeing other people starving makes us miss the food and clothing of our own country even more.

After Zhang Bo arrived in Jiangnan, he called all the famous families in the vicinity, especially those who had shares in the Jiangnan Shipyard.

Then he pointed out what His Royal Highness the Crown Prince meant.

This immediately made many family representatives unhappy.

"Boss Zhang, this is too against the rules. We are all engaged in maritime trade here. If we bring some manpower with us, we will have to go overseas to engage in farming and reclamation, and we will have to ship back a certain amount of grain every year according to the standards."

"We can forget about the manpower, but the grain shipped back from overseas has to be priced according to the Ming market standards. There is no room for profit. And so much grain will take up a lot of space in the ship's cabin, leaving less room for other goods."

"It's risky to go overseas. Not only will you not make much money, you may even lose money."

Once the first person comes out to complain, there will naturally be a second and a third.

Gradually more and more people began to agree.

Only a few representatives of the leading families did not have any intention of speaking. They just sat there steadily, quietly watching how Manager Zhang would answer this question.

Even if it was His Royal Highness the Crown Prince's intention, it could easily cause trouble if it wasn't handled properly.

However, the proper measure here is also very important. If everyone opposes and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince gets angry, I'm afraid things will not be so good.

We have all experienced what kind of person His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is, so of course we have to leave some leeway in this matter.

Although Zhang Bo was born in the Jurchen tribe, he had followed Zhu Ying throughout the country for many years. Whenever they discussed business, he would not avoid him. If there was something he didn't understand, Zhu Ying would tell him some truths afterwards.

After a long time, you will naturally understand more.

At that moment, he was drinking tea nonchalantly, as if he could not hear the complaints around him.

When the voice gradually faded, Zhang Bo raised his head and looked around, then said slowly: "I say you, your eyes are like rats, you can only see the immediate benefits."

"But you don't think carefully about what His Royal Highness means here."

"That's overseas. What does it mean to ask you to bring people to buy land and plant it?"

"This means that you will have a large amount of land overseas. The outside world is not the territory of the Ming Dynasty. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has allowed you to gain such benefits, and he wants you to send back some food. What does this mean?"

As soon as these words were spoken, the surroundings suddenly fell silent, as if a new world had opened up.

The topic of the meeting then began to change, and the direction of the meeting changed drastically. They began to study the standards for annual food delivery, and no longer mentioned what had just happened.